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Member of Ghana National Association of Certificated Counsellors and educationist Daniel Fenyi has predicted more industrial strike actions after the government announced going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
According to him the IMF normally comes with strong conditionalities and some of these conditionalities tend not to favour the Ghanaian worker.
“Some of these conditionalities could include embargo on employment, freeze in salary increment, scrapping off allowances of workers, among others. Considering the high cost of living in Ghana coupled with e-levy and other bad policies, the Ghanaian worker is already suffering. If the IMF takes over the economy and initiates some of these conditionalities, the Ghanaian worker will be worse off” he added.
The decision to go to the IMF has sent a lot fear and uncertainty to Ghanaian workers. Therefore, many workers and Labour Unions are likely to undertake industrial actions such as Strike actions, Demonstrations, Press Statements, etc to “force” the government to pay them their due salaries and allowances before the IMF “freezes” these monies from January next year when it takes over the economy.
Teacher unions throughout the country have declared a strike movement powerful today, Monday, 4 July 2022, over government’s refusal to pay their Cost of Living Allowances (COLA) withinside the wake of growing problem withinside the country.
The teachers had been demanding COLA from the start of the year and even gave a deadline if the employer which is the government did not attend to their needs. According to the teachers, the boom charge of inflation withinside the country has eroded their meagre salaries making existence insufferable for them.
Immediately after the Teacher Unions declared the strike action, UTAG, that is, the University Teachers Association of Ghana, also released a Press Statement. In the Statement, they issued a strong warning to the Government stating that, _”. UTAG would not tolerate any IMF conditionality that negatively affects the existing agreements between Government and UTAG to improve the Conditions of Service of our members_”.
The President, Nana Akufo Addo on, 1st July, 2022, directed the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to start ‘formal engagement’ with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This was contained in a letter dated July 1, 2022 and signed by the Information Minister, Oppong Nkrumah. The IMF operations are expected to kick-start from next year, January, 2023.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
